Compared with console games, online games have unique characteristics that require more complicated design of software architecture. This course delivers state-of-the-art technologies for making online games from clients to servers. Topics include advanced production secrets in developing the world's best online games. Attendees learn what to consider in making advanced online games and how to optimize them to meet the increasing performance demands of future online environments. The course is taught by lead programmers and software engineers from Crytek, ETRI, NCSoft, and Intel.

This paper presents an interactive technique that produces static hairstyles by generating individual hair strands of the desired shape and color, subject to the presence of gravity and collisions. A variety of hairstyles can be generated by adjusting the wisp parameters, while the deformation is solved efficiently, accounting for the effects of gravity and collisions. Wisps are generated employing statistical approaches. As for hair deformation, we propose a method which is based on physical simulation concepts, but is simplified to efficiently solve the static shape of hair. On top of the statistical wisp model and the deformation solver, a constraint-based styler is proposed to model artificial features that oppose the natural flow of hair under gravity and hair elasticity, such as a hairpin. Our technique spans a wider range of human hairstyles than previously proposed methods and the styles generated by this technique are fairly realistic.

We present a performance-driven facial animation system for analyzing captured expressions to find muscle actuation and synthesizing expressions with the actuation values. A significantly different approach of our work is that we let artists sculpt the initial draft of the actuation basis: the basic facial shapes corresponding to the isolated actuation of individual muscles, instead of calculating skin surface deformation entirely, relying on mathematical models such as finite element methods. We synthesize expressions by linear combinations of the basis elements, and analyze expressions by finding the weights for the combinations. Even though the hand-generated actuation basis represents the essence of the subject's characteristic expressions, it is not accurate enough to be used in the subsequent computational procedures. We also describe an iterative algorithm to increase the accuracy of the actuation basis. The experimental results suggest that our artist-in-the-loop method produces a more predictable and controllable outcome than pure mathematical models, and thus can be a quite useful tool in animation productions.

Abstract We describe a system to synthesize facial expressions by editing captured performances. For this purpose, we use the actuation of expression muscles to control facial expressions. We note that there have been numerous algorithms already developed for editing gross body motion. While the joint angle has direct effect on the configuration of the gross body, the muscle actuation has to go through a complicated mechanism to produce facial expressions. Therefore,we devote a significant part of this paper to establishing the relationship between muscle actuation and facial surface deformation. We model the skin surface using the finite element method to simulate the deformation caused by expression muscles. Then, we implement the inverse relationship, muscle actuation parameter estimation, to find the muscle actuation values from the trajectories of the markers on the performer's face. Once the forward and inverse relationships are established, retargeting or editing a performance becomes an easy job. We apply the original performance data to different facial models with equivalent muscle structures, to produce similar expressions. We also produce novel expressions by deforming the original data curves of muscle actuation to satisfy the key‐frame constraints imposed by animators.Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.